Kitchen Conversations

We agreed we needed to go to HEB for some grocery items – specifically, more flour for dumplings. He asked me if we were going to do a cutting this weekend, I griped about our printer dying. It finished with him saying we’d go to Walmart and he’d buy a new one.

So, we did our grocery shopping and hit Walmart and bought the exact same cheap model as the one that just died. We could’ve gone to Best Buy and bought something higher quality, but seriously we don’t need anything fancy. It just needs to scan and print basic black and white most of the time. The last one lasted a long time, this one should get us by for around a year until we feel like investing in anything better.

So, he bought me a new (cheap) printer. I say it’s mine because while technically he’s free to use it, in actuality the likelyhood of him touching it is incredibly low. I think in the past 2 years of us living here he used our printer maybe 5 times, tops.

In addition, we were walking around and he saw mitten-gloves on a rack and had me check them out because he knows I like them (you know, the gloves with the fingertips cut out so that you can have the dexterity but it has a little flap that folds over and turns the gloves into mittens). I wasn’t thrilled with the bulky knitted ones so he looked around and found me some Isotoner sleek ones… which I liked the look of but they were too snug on my fingers (which is odd as I have small hands…. I don’t know who they are actually selling these to).

Ooooo, but as I put that pair back right next to it was a rack of SmartTouch gloves. The gloves that have the little pads on the fingertips so that you can still use your touch devices.

I totally snagged a pair.

So yay, more presents for the Rumpus.

Anyways, kitchen conversations:

We put groceries away and he starts making dumplings. I pitch in on cooking with him. He hands me the baking powder to put in. I read off how much we need of this and that as he adds things in.

Chael suddenly stops and turns to me and ask, “How many teaspoons of baking powder did you put in?”. I looked at the recipe again to make sure I didn’t mess up… Nope, sure enough it says to put 2 in and we’re making a double batch; Four was correct. I answer, “Fooouuurrr”. He replies, “Is that double??”. “Yes… what?… it says 2.. I put in four…?”

He gives this frustrated sigh. I look at him with concerned “wtf?” thoughts and body language.

Chael states with that frustrated and somewhat dejected tone, “It’s not supposed to be doubled… I’m sorry. I use half as much baking powder because it makes them dense”. He sighs. In a lighter tone of resignation he states, “Oh well, I guess they’ll just be kind of fluffy”.

I look out sideways from my squinted angry-face eyes at him and then scrunch my face in a still angry and now pouting expression and say sulkily, “I hate it when they’re fluffy”.

We move on and I let my displeasure at this turn of events wear off.

I really hate fluffy dumplings. I like them dense, solid, and heavy.

But life goes on.

A bit later we get talking about porn. How? I have no clue. Somehow it got on my mind and I brought it up. It developed into my asking him about his porn preferences. He replied a very little and then got evasive. I tried to laugh this off and push a bit harder on it, asking him things and being playful. He keeps dodging and not answering. This is weird. I know he doesn’t have any horrendous, make-me-stop-loving-him sexual interests because we’ve had those kinds of discussions. So I get really to wondering why he’s being so clearly uncomfortable and being how I am this makes me want to push him further and get him to tell me even though/partially because he doesn’t wanna.

Finally, I’m like, “Tell me…!”.

And he says, “No”.

*silence*

I start to get really irritated. Tension builds.

“Why not?”

“Don’t I get to have some things I keep to myself?”

“Well…… yeah…. I guess…..” (in a tone that clearly means, “Noooooo, do you know me?”)

*more tense and pregnant silence*

“You know, there’s a difference between “Honey, I’m really uncomfortable talking about this right now, could we not?” and “No””.

“I know, I’ll work on that”

“Because you know… the former I’m likely to respond with “That’s okay, you think about it and work on getting more comfortable and we’ll talk about it later”. The latter just makes me want to kick you up side the head”

He faces me, leans down and kisses me and says, “I look forward to you being flexible enough to do that”.

“I really don’t like it when you don’t take me seriously.”

“I promise I’m taking you seriously.”

We go back to cooking.

After a few moments I grab his collar and drag him over facing me and leaning down a bit so our faces are more on level.

Tugging on the collar I say, “I’m in charge here”.

He responds, “I know. I love you being in charge”.

He hugs and kisses me and we go on with our evening. Chilling on the livingroom rug we watch the latest Big Bang Theory and agree we didn’t think this week was as good as last week. Then we each wander off to do our own things.

And after a while of bumming around that brings us to now.

He just brought in a “test dumpling” for me and, despite it being fluffier than I like, I enjoyed it and told him so. He asked if he should bring me in a bowl and I said, “yes”. It’s now sitting in front of me cooling.

We didn’t do a rub so far tonight and I think I’m going to let him do a double tomorrow instead of doing it now. Chael’s really run down and I think it’s best if he just spends lazy time in his room tonight.